


Let's Live For Today

by interabang



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
Genre: F/M, First Kiss, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-20
Updated: 2018-02-20
Packaged: 2019-03-18 21:34:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13690257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/interabang/pseuds/interabang
Summary: Gamora watches over Peter as he heals.





	Let's Live For Today

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to [HungryHufflepuff](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HungryHufflepuff) and [calydon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/calydon/pseuds/calydon) for all your cheerleading! <3
> 
> Song title (and song) by [The Grass Roots](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2zgmKtH_7M)

She plans to kiss him after their next mission.

It’s their first one following the horrific events on that monster who had masqueraded as Peter’s father. Before they jump into the fray, he snaps into what she calls Leader mode – “Co-Leader Mode,” he insists – before heading into another fight.

He trades a brief smile with her as they squeeze their hands together in a promise, then jump out of the _Milano_ with their aerorigs activated, spirits high as she raises her Godlayer, and he raises his blasters.

It doesn’t go exactly as she had planned.

“D’ast idiot,” Rocket murmurs.

They’re all huddled around Peter as he lies slumbering on his bunk. He’d requested – no,  _begged_ – on foregoing a hospital stay. His eyes had shone with so much desperation in the medical ward, Gamora conceded and ordered an air stretcher to transport him to their ship, despite the volleys of protests and scandalized glances thrown their way by the Nova Corps’ medical examiners.  

Perched on Rocket’s back, Groot stares up at Peter, the little tree’s gaze fearful. But as Rocket leads him away from Peter’s bedside, Gamora notes the slump of his shoulders, and how his tail drags on the floor.

She pulls up a chair next to Peter, and sits.

And waits.

She keeps a close watch on the bandages criss-crossing his bare torso, making sure he’s not ripping any stitches as he breathes.

She declines to join the others for dinner. They eat at the large table together, and she ignores their stares, along with the hearty scent of Drax’s stew. It’s almost enticing.

After the others finish their silent meal and disperse to their private quarters, Drax approaches her, offering a bowl.

She refuses, asking that he return in a few hours to help her change Peter’s bandages.

He gently lifts Peter’s upper body as Gamora runs the gauze over and under his shoulders and around his back, methodically covering his wounds that had been stitched together by the Nova Corps’ finest.

After tossing the old dressings, Drax once again offers Gamora something to eat.

She shakes her head, settling back down on the chair beside Quill’s bed.

“Then you should rest,” Drax says. “I can watch over him. I won’t risk the chance of waking him with the insufferably loud gurglings of an empty stomach.”

She shakes her head again.

“Yours are quite distracting.”

Gamora _snarls_ at him to leave her be, and he does, but not without grumbling.

She turns back to face Peter.

And she sits.

And waits.

Two cycles later, Drax returns, brandishing a stew-filled ladle almost the size of his arm. He only pauses for a second when she casts her most withering glare upon him, but he stands fast, holding up the ladle.

“I’ve made generals ten times your size beg for the sweet release of death,” Gamora mutters as she turns her head away from the stew, her voice hoarse.

Drax frowns. “Then I will ask Mantis to make you eat.”

“Try it, and you still die first.”

“You must eat, Gamora!” Mantis whispers, stepping out into view from behind Drax. “You can’t help Peter if you’re in a weakened state.”

“Weakened?” she croaks. “I endured five scorching days in a desert once, without food and drink. My modifications remain useful, after all.” She nearly spits out the word _useful_.

“Yeah, that’s great ’n all, but you don’t gotta brag about it,” Rocket says as he slides down the cockpit’s ladder, then pads his way toward Peter’s bunk. “Look, just fill your yap and get some shut-eye now, then we’ll leave ya alone as long as y’want.”

Gamora barely blinks at his suggestion, then nearly rises out of her seat when she catches Groot waddling toward her, holding a bowl of hot stew high over his head. “Why are you carrying that? Here.”

She stands up and takes the bowl from him.

Then, quite suddenly, she sways on the spot, collapsing back onto the chair.

“Oh, shut up,” she mutters, letting her unwashed hair provide a much-needed barrier between her and the others’ smug expressions.

After she drains every drop in the bowl, she takes it to the sink, filling it with sudsy water, and returns to Peter’s bedside.

Then she shoves Drax out of _her_ chair.

He doesn’t fall far, and it’s not loud enough to rouse Peter, but she had to exert a bit more force than she usually would. She, of course, doesn’t betray that fact.

He waves off Mantis’s outstretched hand and rises on his own, grumbling inane threats and something Gamora swears sounds like, “ _—_ if the fool weren’t so in love, I’d challenge her to an arena fight.”

Gamora turns her attention back toward Peter, smoothing one of the bandages on his bare stomach and shifting his blanket.

Drax, misguided as he is on the advantages of using stealth in battle, isn’t wrong about her feelings. 

But that deep-seated dread which had taken root in her heart as a child, now threatens the hope that had begun to blossom after she met Peter.

Her gaze falls upon his most precious possession, even more beloved than his blasters, or his coat:

The Zoon.

Peter had clutched it to his chest as he lay bleeding out on the battlefield. He lifted it up to Gamora as Drax shielded him with a large slab of rock, Rocket returned tenfold of the damage that had been done to Peter, and Mantis piloted the _Milano_ toward the group.

Gamora had pocketed the blood-stained device as she helped Rocket dispose of their enemies. She made sure the rest of them died screaming.

Now, she’s staring at the music player, wiped clean of blood and grit. She activates it, as she’s seen Peter do many times, and presses one of the buttons to select a song.

She’s not familiar with the written Terran language, but she recognizes some of the pictures that she’d seen while peering over Peter’s shoulder.

She finds a song he had been listening to a lot recently, and, as if in a dream, she pulls out the cord attached to his ear pieces, and plugs in the analog audio cord Rocket had fashioned specifically for the speakers around Quill’s bunk.

Slowly, the melody of the song streams out of the speakers around Quill, and she turns the volume down on the device.

She closes her eyes and rests her back against the chair.

“We were never meant to worry, the way that people do,” the singer tells her, and she wants to believe him. “And I don’t mean to hurry, as long as I’m with you.”

She thinks about Peter, and how he used to sing the next refrain to her:

“We’ll take it nice and easy, and use my simple plan.

“...  _be my lovin’ woman, I’ll be your lovin’ man_.”

Her eyes fly open at the additional, and very familiar voice.

“ _Shala, la la_...” Peter mumbles next to her, his eyes closed.

And Gamora is still just sitting there, staring at him.

Slowly, laboriously, he opens his eyes, then turns his head to face her.

The corner of his mouth twitches, without her mods regulating her breath, she would have forgotten to drawn one in.

He stretches out his hand toward her.

“Great song,” he rasps. “Knew you loved it too  _—_ ”

Then he breaks down into a coughing fit, and she springs into action, grabbing some water left on the table over by the large holopad and rushing back with it.

He manages to lift his head up long enough to take a few deep gulps, and unleashes a satisfied sigh. “Thanks.”

“I do,” Gamora tells him, setting down the water container. “But I think I played it as a last resort. I was beginning to wonder if you’d ever wake.”

“Oh, man,” he says, rubbing his eyes with his left hand and blinking up at her. “How long was I out for?”

“Too long. I should’ve made you stay in the medical facility.”

“Yeah,” he says, groaning as he lifts his head again, gazing at all the bandages covering his torso. “I’ll think about it next time.”

“There won’t _be_ a next time,” she says, fiercely. “I’ll make sure there won’t. I’ll be faster, more observant. I _refuse_ to let myself believe I have lost you again.”

He lowers his head back down on the pillow, then dangles his hand over the edge of the bunk.

She slips her hand into his and he intertwines their fingers. Slowly, he lifts his thumb and rubs small circles against her skin.

“Hey,” he whispers, “it’s gonna be okay.”

She shakes her head, relief flooding her system - along with other emotions her mods can’t regulate. “I’m glad you came back to me, Peter.”

“Always do,” he says with a languid smile. “Always will.”

She scoots her chair closer, brushing his curls out of his face.

And, before she hesitates to let anymore doubts roll in, Gamora leans over Peter and presses her lips to his.

It’s long, and soft, and he makes a small noise at the back of his throat in surprise. She sinks into it as she presses a hand to his face, cupping his cheek.

He returns her kiss with the fervor of a man who hadn’t just been a mere stone’s throw from death, and between their bodies, his hand squeezes hers even more, despite his likely discomfort. His facial hair rasps against her upper lip and her palm, and neither of them have brushed their teeth nor showered in days.

Gamora couldn’t care less.

When they separate, she pulls back a bit, studying his expression as her thumb moves back and forth along his jawline. She opens her mouth to apologize, to say that she should have waited for him to heal.

But when she looks into Peter’s eyes, she knows that he has been waiting for her, too.

He’s been waiting for her to do exactly what she just did.

“That was, without a doubt,” he whispers, “the best first kiss I’ve ever had.”

She shakes her head, stifling a laugh, leaning back down toward his lips.

And she kisses him.

And kisses him.

 


End file.
